Gee, I don’t know, Faye Turney seemed very sincere and forthright about her country’s egregious transgression. 
And I’m sure she wore that hijab years before she was captured by the Iranians. :rolleyes:
Fuck, if the Iranians are going to forge a vital news “bulletin”, they should at least make a slight attempt to create the illusion that it has at least a snowball in Hell’s chance that it just might be legitimate.
Assholes !!! :mad:
(Yes, I know. It’s time for my medication again).
Why yes, yes they are smoking crack rocks. Do you feel better now?
The people smocking crack are those that believe Britain has any military options that won’t end in executions if they are carried out. Sure we could sink ships and bomb cities. To what point exactly? Have you gotten the impression that Iran is prone to succumbing to threats? They might be a lot of things but they are not cowards when it comes to casualties or economic damage.
Iran is not some defenceless pissant country. They have anti-ship missiles, they have air defences and they have the ability to really stir things up for us in Basra. This isn’t Falklands 2. We couldn’t even pull that off any more. The only military option we have would be to ask Big Brother Bush to lead the charge and then it’ll look to me and the rest of the world like this is just a contrived incident to give the USA the excuse it is looking for.
The sad fact is if we want the people back safe and well then diplomacy is the only game in town. If we want them dead just so some of us can strut around with our chicken-hawk chests puffed out then bluster away.
So, just because the US sucks, and the UK sucks for being in Iraq, one cannot be pissed off about the Iranians seizing the British sailors, that is just not cool? Or PC?
It is always going to be “Well they deserved it because of the illegal war in Iraq” no matter what any country over there does? Everything that happens now, they get a free pass because “Bush and Blair are stinking liars for going to war in Iraq”
Never ANY slack for anything anymore?
Sorry, that would be directed to the likes of der trihs and such. I mean, no matter what the fuck happens, we are fucking wrong?
I guess you would like them stood against the wall and machine-gunned as spies, would that give you a bit of satisfaction?
Ain’t it a bitch when the five-minute edit window’s just too damn short for the esprit d’escalier, Klaatu?
Heh, you remember back when we had to walk uphill through the snow just to post I’m sure. And we liked it! Fuck a bunch of editing.
Damn new-fangled crap.
ETA I like that phrase. I would use it if I could pronounce it.
I guess I use it all the time. “too little too late” I like the French version better though
Do me a favour Elsie…FUCK OFF
You can be as pissed off as you like. It’s when you start spinning military fantasies that will inevitably end in 15 deaths just to make yourself feel good that I object. Being pissed off is not going to do any good. We have no options other than diplomacy or a full scale attack by the USA. Only the first will free the captives.
And no - Bush and Blair do not get cut one inch of slack any more. Bush is spoiling for a fight and Blair is a lapdog. Both have lied us into one war already.
The responsibility for reducing the trustworthiness of the UK and the USA to banana republic levels is theirs.
You’d have to be insane to trust them under these circumstances, particularly over lines on a map no-one can agree on anyway.
Maybe they were in Iraq waters, maybe they were in Iranian, maybe they were in areas claimed by both. I’m inclined to believe they were in Iraqi waters at the moment but either way the Iranians should release them.
And the USA hold five Iranians legitimately in Iraq without consular access (and no doubt undergoing a far more rigourous questioning than our people are),and have probably been behind the disappearance of 3 Iranian generals (one from Turkey and two from within Iran itself. Think how pissed off we’d be if two British generals were snatched from Sandhurst). You punch someone in the face you can’t then express shock and outrage if they punch back.
The overwhelming aim is to get our people back safely and I don’t see any other way to do that than by diplomacy. And if that requires some pride-swallowing then so be it.
Yes, and quite predictably, I might add. And don’t forget the torture, the murders, the corruption, the kidnapping, the incompetence; America and to a lesser degree Britain have lost the moral high ground, lost their political capital, and lost their credibility. And it’s going to be a long time to get it back, especially for America; faster for Britain, if it stops acting like America’s toady. No one respects toadies.
No, we, and Britain, are wrong because we keep doing wrong. And at this point I’m going to assume that both America and Britain are in the wrong unless proven otherwise, until I see some evidence that either are interested in behaving in a civilized, trustworty, and/or competent fashion.
And before you or anyone starts whining about be apologising for Iran’s behavior, I’m not ( although so far they appear to be morally ahead of the coalition since the prisoners appear intact ). I don’t like or trust America, Britain, or Iran. I consider it perfectly possible for all three to be the bad guys.
Der trihs and tagos, with respect, I will have to digest your bullshit and reply tomorrow.
ETA not pussing out, IRL obligations, like work 
No, but I get that impression about Britain.
Believe me, if *I * feel contempt towards the UK, think how everyone else here in the Middle East. I wonder what that will do for British foreign policy?
Britain once knew, and should remember, that nothing is worse for a country than contempt. They’d be much better off if they were hated, or even better, feared.
(Of couse, *loved * would be best, but I don’t see much of a chance of that happening.)
Start off by saying “essPREE dessCALLY” and then pretend that you’re Canadian and have to end everything by saying “eh?”. That’ll be close enough. I love the mental image of being halfway downstairs before you realize what you should’ve said.
I had that mental image a lot back when I was married. And we didn’t even have a staircase, eh! :smack:
Britain does not have the need or the wherewithal to be ‘feared’.
Besides nothing is worse than posturing you can’t back up, particularly posturing that gets your own servicemen and women pointlessly dead.
Our strength should lie with our diplomatic influence, our allies in Europe and our ability to utilise ‘soft power’ instead of pointless and counter-productive military ventures that result in debacles like Iraq.
Besides - as allies of the USA, who the Iranians hold responsible for holding and kidnapping their own citizens, and aggressors in our own right in Iraq the UK has not got much of a toehold on the moral high ground here.
I very much doubt Elsie was saying that. No, actually, it’s totally obvious that Elsie was not saying that. It’s also quite likely she was not implying it either. She may, however, have been implying that the Iranian government perceives its citizens to be stupid and/or gullible. Note also the total lack of comparison made with Americans and Britons.
Rule #1 of message board posting: if you start out a reply to someone with ‘So you are saying that’, stop, go make some tea, come back, read their post again, and consider starting over.
Ha! We have a Prince among us!
Okay, so what you’re saying dude is it’s like Death Metal right. Like who would ever like that shit ?
Well, you know you don’t know until you try, right; probably better with some advance market analysis stuff - ‘market segmentation’ baby - but, what ever, put that ditty out there and see if anyone salutes, as my dad would say.
Now, some ain’t gonna groove right, but some will, and the new groovers are probably the people who though metal was pussy, man, like Liberace man with red candles. Kinda new twist to broaden the market - the coke, diet coke, new coke deal; you’re not going to lose anyone right, the same music is still happening?
So what you’re saying is this Ahm-havin-mah-dinner guy is partly fishing around his audience seeing who else wants to party, right ?